Inevitable Mutual Destruction
by QuickSilverFox3
Summary: Critical Role The Mighty Nein A shadow of death hangs over Mollymauk's head, the same three cards tell his future. So what is a tiefling to do but continue forwards towards his own end? (Hints of Widomauk)


p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"The Pierced Knight, The Raven Queen's Champion, The Hanging Sword./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Skilled with the cards, Mollymauk was. His devilish appearance leant well to it, toothy grin enticing those engraved by the cards flashing between his fingers closer, yellow eyes reading the secrets they tried to hide and were plastered over their face./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"That one wants her life to be exciting. Give her the Traveller and watch the smile spread across her face, visions of sea journeys and dashing adventures playing behind her eyes./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"He wants to be married, he does not. Runic Circles then, some cryptic words gently prodding a conversation, opening up those barriers a peak in the muted darkness of his tent./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"They want peace, though their mouth says otherwise, brash and snarling. The Moon, and let them puzzle, temper cooling in her soft gentle light./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"The Pierced Knight, The Raven Queen's Champion, The Hanging Sword./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"The Moon-weaver worked in mysterious ways, her face hidden from him, but always there smiling down upon Mollymauk, her child. Since the first taste of grave dirt, there was something missing deep in his chest. Try to see and discover his blood could be used to poison. Try to find out what was the matter with him and learn to fight. Try to read his future and the same three cards again and again./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"The Pierced Knight, The Raven Queen's Champion, The Hanging Sword./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Molly stroked long ringed fingers over the unmarked backs of the cards he had laid down on the floor of the inn before him. It was a funny group he had found himself in, as mismatched as they could be and yet he loved them all fiercely already. He knew what cards were in front of him without even having to guess, random selection turning up the same combination again and again./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"The Moon-weaver's own secret message that he was always too scared to read and yet he couldn't escape./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Death was in his future./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: 'Apple Color Emoji'; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"In a way Death was in everyone's future, whether in guise of a sword, a poison or the deceptive calm of old age. But none as present as Mollymauk's. He had seen the actively dying, the passively dying, but no one had the amount of death omens hanging over their head except him./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"And what do you do with that information?/p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"He was span style="font-style: italic;"scared/span. /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"If he stopped too long to think about it, the gaping maw in his chest would open again, the faint whispers of 'empty, empty, empty' escalating to a roar that blocked out all else, the taste of grave dirt in his mouth, the copper iron of his own death wounds heavy on his tongue./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Yasha knew something was happening with him, could feel her eyes on him in the quiet around the campfire but she couldn't help him. A warm body next to his in the cold nights when the earth closes around him once more, a quiet voice to ask questions when his eyes begin to grow blank, her smile when he gave her flowers; these all helped more than she could ever know./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"He read her future once, idle curiosity driving him ever forward one night when the thunder crashed and the rain lashed down and she was outside./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"The Stormlord card stared up at him, a card he previously had never owned before./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Mollymauk was not an overly religious tiefling but he understood the message well enough. Stay away./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"He peeked through the crack in the tent, saw Yasha, face turned to the sky, hair plastered down her back with the rain and the gleam of the Moon-Weaver peeking out over her./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Things were ever changing in the carnival, new towns to travel to, new faces to read and futures to predict. It was a fine line he was walking, this Mollymauk knew. For every life he nudged onto a better path, he could feel his own death draw closer, the Moon-Weaver's gaze smiling softly down at him through it all./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"And then he met Them./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"It seemed almost like a cosmic joke. A half-orc, two humans, a tiefling and a goblin walk into a circus. But they fight and they win./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Molly glanced at the small smile on Yasha's lips, the way her eyes kept darting over to the mismatched group and then his choice that wasn't really a choice was made. This group would look after Yasha when he was dead and buried once more, for good this time./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"The Pierced Knight, The Raven Queen's Champion, The Hanging Sword./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"His fate hadn't changed. They had travelled, fought a foe long thought beaten, argued and cried together, and he loved them./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"And Mollymauk would have to leave them./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Fjord, the Traveller: a long journey ahead of him with many miles already under his feet. His back was beginning to bend over the responsibilities he piled atop himself, a load that Beau helped him shoulder; but he needed to learn to bend before he broke./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Beau, the Warrior: if one woman could learn to punch the Gods it would be her. At war with everything, including herself. Molly saw her beginning to soften, beginning to turn from raw steel to tempered, but would she turn fast enough?/p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Jester, the Traveller upside down: her patron looked out for her in way few ever did. Her light was bright, her smile infectious to all around her. She was growing up before his eyes and he hoped her happiness would remain a beacon in the darkening world./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Yasha, the Stormlord: the Lord had his teeth into his first friend, driving her onwards on her path she didn't know, twitching her fate so that He was the only one there. Molly gave her flowers, plaited them into her hair, massaged away the pain from phantom wings. He could only hope that she would continue forwards after his death with the group who cared for her as he did./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Nott, the Eternal Queen: Such a mess of conflicting impulses, to steal, to drink, to protect Caleb, her chosen son, with every fibre of her being. One so full of love but so full of hate, a tightrope walker without a net. She was directionless before Caleb, now a ship with a broken rudder steered by a man more lost than her. She would grow and blossom, this Molly knew, but would she let it happen without him?/p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Caleb, the Hanged Man: Molly was a mess when it came to Caleb, this he knew as true as he knew his blades. Forever wanting more than he could have, waiting for Caleb to find himself, stand steady on his own two feet while the sand of Mollymauk's life trickled out of the broken hourglass. Molly had seen the glances, the blushes after he had confronted him that night, the tiefling drawn by what he was denying himself. He hoped it would work, hoped he would have time before the end./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"The Pierced Knight, The Raven Queen's Servant, The Hanging Sword/p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Dying hurt. It hurt before and it hurt after, the middle a blank of nothingness Mollymauk couldn't recall. From clawing his way into the fresh night air from his own grave, mind a mess of nothingness; to a lucky swipe from an attacked and Jester's healing hands on his chest; to now./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Last breath, blade buried in his chest and hanging above him no more, silver glinting in the moonlight. His goddess attending the end of one of her true faithful. New friends and old flitted at the edges of his vision. He could hear their cries, their screams but he was too far away, brought low by his own poison blood for the last time./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Mollymauk stared up at the man above him, the face of the Pierced Knight overlaying Lorenzo's features until the two were one and the same./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;" /p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"One move, one action left before his death. The event he had feared and known was coming for the entirety of his second life was finally here./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"Only one choice to make./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"His blood, poisoned and lifegiving, splattered across Lorenzo's face./p  
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;"A sharp twist and he was gone, grin on his face and blood on his lips, Death hanging over him no more/p 


End file.
